Tracking Gustav

Here's a TV stations website where you can track Gustav as he heads to the Gulf.

http://www.kplctv.com/global/Category.asp?c=137827

If you click on more maps you can see the different projected paths. A wonderful way to learn about hurricanes and if you live on the Gulf a good way to teach emergency preparedness.

Maybe it will simply go away. Happy Labor Day Weekend, everyone.

Wordless Wednesday

Welcome to our new template

I broke down and added a 3-column template yesterday. I tried a variety of free options from this wonderful template site.

http://www.simplyfabulousbloggertemplates.com/

While I enjoyed the look of the ones I chose, they just didn't say this is Wakefield Academy. I settled on this retro orange. We are studying complementary colors in art and I like how it highlighted the blue in our beach photos. Orange is also one of Z's favorite colors.

The photo in the title was taken at the Gulf of Mexico near Holly Beach, Louisiana. The beach is a little untamed and very natural, somewhat like our school.

Enjoy the new colors and have a great day.

Science is Such a Gas!

This year we are exploring Chemistry with God's Design for Chemistry. Our first experiment dealt with gas, so fitting for a 10-year-old. We placed yeast and hot water in 3 bottles. Bottle 1, on the left, was our control, bottle 2 we added white sugar, bottle 3 we added molasses. We needed to see how much gas each bottle produced over the period of one hour.

This is the beginning (zero hour) for our experiment.
At approximately 6 minutes the balloon with the sugar started to inflate.
At about 15 minutes both balloons were inflated.
At 30 minutes you can see molasses has more gas than sugar. The sugar was at 6.25" around and the molasses was at 9.5".
At the end of the hour the sugar was still at 6.25" and the molasses was at 13".
Professor Z had hypothesized that the molasses would produce more gas, his theory was correct.

When asked why someone would choose to use a sweetener that does not produce the most gas he simply replied, "So there would be no exploding bread." Makes sense to me. :)

Science is going to be fun this year!

When in Doubt Leave the Cat in Charge

This is Speedy, he is all cat, my shadow. He loves me unconditionally and therefore will protect any and all things. Here is he protecting my planner. Goodness knows my mundane to do list is in constant peril of being overrun by savages. This is the look he gives to those who dare approach. Looks harmless doesn't it?
Here he is protecting the all important Pro-Click binding machine and items which have been spiral bound. Apparently he understood the excitement I had in receiving said binding machine (aka hole punch). No harm shall come to my goods while Sir Speedy is in control.
This is perhaps his most important job. One he has done so many times, he can actually sleep and perform said task at the same time. Notice the positioning of the body so could pounce should anyone try to remove this binder. This is my almost completed very rough draft of my first novel.
He has been with me since its inception early this year. Perhaps he feels a kinship with my characters as well. I've discussed them with Sir Speedy quite a bit, he listens very well. You can see the comfortable stance he takes from this photo. It only looks like his eyes are closed. I know better. You can see the packing tape and amazon box in the background. These are his weapons lying in wait should be need them.
Who needs a guard dog, when you have a guard cat!

Wordless Wednesday (with a few words)

Got to love a man with priorities. Playing with the latest gadget, waiting on crab legs.

Day 2 Down

Day two of 5th grade is now behind us. There has been no blood, no time-outs, not even homework. There have been no weeping and gnashing of teeth and only one verbal threat to make him sit on a real stationary chair instead of the exercise ball. Otherwise the two days have been wonderful. Yeah! Yesterday I asked how he thought the day went. Good thing I was sitting down as he said, "I liked it." Victory!

Galveston: The Calm Before the Storm part 2

Well, this is the view from the parking lot of our hotel. We got to hang out in a place called Palm Beach, which is a small sand beach area made around a small pool. It was fun. Z loves the water. Thi is a storm, not the tropical storm, that blew through Sunday night. It cooled things off a good bit.
We ate at Rainforest Cafe Sunday night. Well, sort of. It was already late and the wait was long, so we hung out and got the food to go. We've eaten at several Rainforest Cafes all over the country, so we didn't miss the show, but it was fun to stop.
This is the view from our hotel window. The lazy river is Schliterbahn. We had planned to spend all day there on Monday. However, grr, due to the Tropical Storm we opted to skip the water park. Z was greatly disappointed but we felt it was the prudent decision. We didn't want to spend 100.00 to get in and then not be able to fully enjoy it.

We had lost a few trees in our yard during a Saturday night storm and since they didn't know exactly where the storm was headed, we thought we should head home and protect our own property. One of the trees that had fallen covered the driveway. Since the chainsaw was broken, Tigger had simply driven around the tree. They are outside right now dealing with the remnants of the two fallen trees.

We opted to head down to the beach and walk around. Z had a blast.

We decided to head to Target and stock up on some dry goods before heading home. Z was just as excited about stopping at Target as he was about going to the beach. We stopped and had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack before heading home. Tigger got to get his hands on some crab legs and he was a happy camper.

We stopped a few places on the way home and people were preparing for the storm. Most of what we saw was people filling up gas tanks and buying bottled water.

We finally made it home late Monday evening. We got rain from the storm but no high winds. So while it was a quick vacation, it was fun. Now that we know what to expect we are ready to return.

Galveston: The Calm Before the Storm part 1

We planned and finally executed a short trip to Galveston last weekend. This is Tigger and I attempting to enjoy this whirlwind vacation. Yes, you maybe remember Galveston, Texas, target of the lastest Tropical Storm. Did we know anything about the tropical storm as we headed out? No. But we were only there for two days anyway, we planned to be gone before the storm.

We had a new passenger with us for this trip. Tigger's new phone (look, don't touch) has GPS. It was great to have another woman doing the navigation so I could relax and say, "didn't you ask her?" Z decided she needed a name, LOLA. So fitting, it's the GPS from the movie RV and I think it stands for Logging Out of Louisiana. So LOLA showed us the way to go.

Her first upset was neglecting to mention that trains sometimes stop on the tracks we were crossing. A few tense minutes and finally we were on our way.



LOLA also failed to take into account my fear of heights and bridges. Thankfully Tigger was able to keep me distracted by making me take pictures. Beautiful bridge. He didn't have to mention, "Oh, I feel it moving." That part didn't help.


This is about the point a curse word flew out of my mouth. How did that get in there?

Finally, we found our hotel. Moody Gardens. We've stayed a resort hotels many places. It felt odd to not be exhausted when we arrived. Before we moved a beach involved a day long plane ride and taxi to the hotel. I almost felt like a local.
I knew we had not stayed a hotel in a while when Z mentioned he needed a washcloth. "But we didn't pack any Mom." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "Check the bathroom sweetie"

Z immediately became the keeper of the room key. Tigger couldn't get it to work, so we gave the electronic card to the 10-year-old. He figured it out fine. I was pleasantly surprised, the room was great and there was enough to do that we didn't need to leave our little area of the island.

We did, however. I will continue with the saga tomorrow, so stay tuned and I'll have the rest of the story...

Sometimes Life Throws us a Curveball

There are times in our lives when we don't know what the next step is going to be. I have often looked back at those times in hindsight and been thankful I didn't know. I needed to build my strength day-by-day in order to handle the curves.

I have been blessed to have friends and a loving family to be with me through those times.

One of my friends was handed a curveball today. I can't physically go right now to hold her hand or to hug her. But I wanted to let her know that I am thinking of her. As the answers and more questions come, I pray strength for her in the day-to-day.

Wordless Wednesday (from Spring)

Will my Amazon Order Arrive Today?

I generally order over 25.00 from Amazon to get free shipping. This time I was impatient and paid for shipping and I had less than 25.00 anyway. Okay, maybe I'm impatient in real life (IRL for you savvy people) but I generally can wait a few extra days for my books. It's not like I'm going to run out of reading material in the near future. (she said stepping around the pile of books in what used to be a dining room)

So like the obsessed reader that I am I check my order status at least two to three times per day. It is supposed to be here today. However the delivery confirmation (DC) never got scanned at pickup. How do I know this? Well amazon says my books have left the building, but usps.gov says it hasn't been picked up yet. I know it is not uncommon for DC to not get scanned, so I promise not to chew off all of my fingernails today while waiting for the mail, at least I'll try.

This order has two books that I am looking forward to reading. Now that may sound like I order books I'm not excited to read, which is not entirely true. I've been ordering a lot of books for school but these are for me alone. One is a study group book. It's an honest-to-goodness thinking man (womans) book that I would never attempt without someone elses intelligence in tow. That way they can answer all of my questions, even the stupid ones. I'd like to get a head start on the back and it is almost too late to do that.

Thankfully my computer is within earshot of the mail truck. Since they fixed the brakes it's harder to hear him, but I know the sound. It's different than the UPS truck, which I recognize as well.

Maybe it's simply easier to order more and get free shipping. When I'm not paying for it, I have more patience. Hum, it's too early for all of this thinking, I'm going back to bed.


ETA: Books have arrived safely. I can rest easy now.

Siestas for School

I believe Americans are stressed because we do not have siestas in the afternoon. I have implemented those into my schedule this summer and found them quite relaxing. I do wonder if it is possible to add them into our school schedule.

Just another thing we should have keep doing after kindergarten, afternoon nap time. Thirty minutes to one hour is ideal. Oh, and give your children a time to wake you up. They learn to tell time and gain responsibility at the same time.

Wordless Wednesday

This is for all the guys that work outside all day

An ode to the sweaty man
You toil and labor hard all day
Sometimes for what seems little pay
You do the work, where no one else will go
A roof, an attic, out in the heat
Steam from the asphalt rising on the street
You think of your family at home in the air
You're doing your job, to show that you care
Heat index up in the danger zone
Sweaty man, you're never really alone
Your wife and your kids think the best of you
The sacrifice in sweat for all that you do
We'll turn down the a/c and make some ice tea
We appreciate you and we hope that you see
We love you and we think you of you laboring in the sun
At the end of the day, we know you're #1.

5th Grade is almost here

Here are some photos of the curricula we are using this year. This is our classroom.
This is our geography, history, music, and art. I picked up the wonderful book "Concise History of Western Music" at Goodwill. Here are our Latin, Composition, math, and religion. We are also doing a portion of Beautiful Feet's History of Science.
For science we are using God's Design for Chemistry and "The world of Chemistry". Notice our two other purchases? A microscope and the blue device is a binding machine, otherwise known as mom's favorite new toy.
Another purchase was an inexpensive telescope. We haven't had time to use it yet. Our literature selections are sitting on top of the bookcase. "Bulfinch's mythology" and "Lamb's Shakespeare".

Biology fans: What is this skull?

This is a skull I found on the beach last weekend, it was a rather deserted portion of the shoreline. Like a good homeschooling mom I picked it up and brought it home. I'm assuming it is some sort of marine animal. However it is possible it is a land based creature. It is 6 1/2" long and about 3" wide. Any guesses? Please leave me a comment.

An Angel was on the Beach

Some Day are Like This

More Beach Stuff

If you are a beach nut and you were going to choose where to live, this might be your ideal location. That is all.